I bet if you looked at a full scope of fantasy baseball leagues in the world, results would show that many keeper leagues are abandoned after only 1 year. Unfortunately, that is probably a keeper league's average "lifespan." When joining a keeper league, you should always make sure that its members, and especially the commissioner, have no intention of abandoning it.

it all depends. just find some dedicated people and it should be fine. i've been doing a league with the same people since 1998 and this is the first time we did a keeper. i guess leagues that have a little money on the line will keeper owners more involved.

i play in a 13 team NL only 3 yr cycle league that has been around since 1987 (i joined in '94)..8 of the same teams have been in it since '94 (we have expanded by 2 teams since inception)..we used to be a 5 yr cycle but too many players were being held for too long making auctions in the 3rd and 4th years pretty slim so we went w/ a 3 yr cycle in 1997 and it has been just right

My AL only 12 team keeper has been going for 7 years. We have seven of the orginal owners. Each year we replace one or two . We are the most active of the twelve so it seems. We play it for fun but first place is worth $120.00 and fifth place is worth $80.00. Not big money but a very fun league with a good bunch of owners. We communicate often and get together three or four times a year. I was also in a 16 team mixed and those guys were such sticks in the mud . No off season activity or communication. I was bored. Two years was enough for me. One league keeps me fresh and focused on my team.

Also depends on what you consider keep going to be defined by and what rules you are using.

If you have a 10 team, 8 leeper league for instance, you are probably looking at 3-5 years before you will either lose a lot of owners that will be difficult to replace or you will have a top heavy stratification. That meaning that 4 or 5 teams have very good players, a couple have OK keepers and 3 or 4 are basically inept and hopelessly ouut of contention. It is hard to get a new owner to take over a team of 8 keepers where he has no one (or only 1 or 2) players worth squat. At that point, you either have to abandon the league, cut the hopeless owners a bone by lettig them play for free or on the cheap (assuming a money league) or cut down the keeper count to 4 or so to re-balance the league out. Technically this may be the same league, but in reality it is a sizeable re-alignment and quite different.

The 10 team 7 keeper league that I'm in has been around for 7 years now. It's a bunch of guys that started the league during our senior years of HS and now we're all through college. We've only lost 3 guys over the 7 years too so I'm pretty happy with this league. I would guess that this is the exception to the rule. I would guess keeper leagues last 2-3 years on average.

Ours has been together now for almost 13 years. The core group of members started with about 8 and out of those 8 only 2 of the original remain. But we have 10 really good owners and have had that number for the last 2 or 3 years. As long as you can keep a core together it can survive. You lose members along the way but there is always some one out there looking to be a part of a keeper league.